Adjustable sinter breaker apparatus



Oct. 27, 1964 K. REINFELD ETAL ADJUSTABLE SINTER BREAKER APPARATUS 3 Sheets-Sheet 1 Filed May 25, 1960 Mm 2 6mm uohit 0 auhuuzzo INVENTORS.

Oct. 27, 1964 K. REINFELD ETAL 3,154,622

ADJUSTABLE SINTER BREAKER APPARATUS Filed May 23. 1960 3 Sheets-Sheet 2 HL I will!!! yli ilil'li MOTOR- REDUCER INVENTORS. g Kakr PEI/VFAS'LO,

.Foaser S. Corr-01f Oct. 27, 1964 K. REINFELD ETAL ADJUSTABLE SINTER' BREAKER APPARATUS Filed May 23, 1960 3 Sheets-Sheet 3 IN VEN TORS KURT RJNFELD nited States Patent ()flice iid fizz Patented Get. 27, 1964 3,154,622 ADJUSTABLE SENTER BREAKER APPARATUS Kurt Reinfeld and Robert S. Cotton, Pittsburgh, Pa, assignors to liloppers Company, Inc., a corporation of Delaware lFiled May 23, 1960, Ser. No. 30,935 1 Claim. (Cl. 266) The present invention relates to sintering apparatus for uniformly producing a well-sized sinter product of various different sizes from broken sinter cake, and more particularly, to an adjustable sinter breaker apparatus for breaking hot sinter cake from a continuous sintering machine into different maximum sizes as may be desired from time to time for more efiicient or changing use of the sinter as the charges of blast furnaces, open hearths, and other furnaces.

Sinter breakers for the aforesaid uses are commonly designed in advance of use to be adapted to deliver broken sinter at a definite rate in the form of a specific maximum size suitable for a predetermined operation in the furnaces. After the sinter breaker has been in operation for some time, it is often found desirable to alter the size of the delivered broken sinter to a different maximum size, necessitating change in the sinter breaker apparatus in some manner to vary the size of broken sinter delivered by the sintering machine. In addition, the ordinary wear on the component sinter breaker parts, in time, results in a substantial change in the maximum size of broken sinter delivered by the sintering machine to such an extent that it is necessary to replace or renew the component sinter breaker parts to adjust the machine to the intended throughput of the desired size of sinter.

A primary object of the invention, is the provision of a simple, more economical, and facile way, of adjusting the breaker apparatus for controlling the size of sinter discharged from the sinter machine to meet a desired uniform sinter size, or a change in the desired sinter size.

In the well-known continuously operating type of sintering machine, the mixture to be sintered is carried in pallets which move in abutting relation along an endless conveyor, the ore mixture being generally sintered in the pallets while moving along the upper run. As the pallets in sequence reach the discharge end of the upper run, the sintered cake in each pallet falls by gravity from the pallets as they turn around a bend to enter the lower run for return to the opposite end of the upper run for recharging. The sinter cake falls as a very large cake onto an inclined crash deck which arrests the fall of the cake and breaks the cake into smaller lumps or chunks of a size suitable for further breaking by rotatable breaker teeth. The broken cake pieces then pass by gravity between a breaker deck and a breaker roll to break up the broken pieces of sinter cake into their final size. The breaker deck generally comprises parallel breaker bars, all in a single plane, with the bars evenly spaced from each other and through which teeth arranged on the breaker roll pass in operating to break up the sinter pieces to the desired final size. The teeth are arranged on separate wheels in a row on the breaker shaft, the teeth on each wheel can be staggered relative to those of the adjacent wheels and spaced from each other and rotatable above the top of the breaker bars in the breaker deck for breaking the larger pieces of sinter from the crash deck into smaller pieces, which all pass through the deck to a screen, which separates the sinter pieces of the desired size for delivery to the desired use from the smaller sizes which are recycled back to the sinter strand as sinter mix and as a hearth layer for the sinter strand.

The size of the desired pieces of sinter is determined by the width of the space between the breaker bars and the size or thickness of the teeth on the breaker roll. The sinter is generally hard and well fused, and the roll is operated at a rate greater than the rate of discharge of the sinter from the sinter strand to ensure that there will be no objectionable accumulation on the sinter crash deck and breaker deck above the breaker roll while serving to break the larger pieces from the breaker deck into the desired smaller size sinter and also functioning as a retarder for the sinter sliding down by gravity from the crash deck to the breaker deck to enter between the teeth of the breaker roll and the top of the breaker bars in the area where the teeth sweep through the spaces between the bars. As a consequence, the surfaces of the bars and teeth are subjected to great striking forces and wear, and so, they are conventionally lined or coated with greater wear-resistant material than the material the bars are made from.

It has been the practice to replace the breaker bars with bars of greater or lesser width to decrease or increase the spaces between the bars when it becomes necessary to alter or adjust the size of the sinter that is to be delivered from the machine, as well as when the surfaces of the bars become too worn. This entails dismantling the breaker roll and replacing the wheels thereon, since the wheels and their teeth must be correctly aligned with the centers of the spaces between the bars on the breaker deck. This is a time-consuming and expensive procedure, which results in long shutdown periods of the sintering machine. To avoid this, replaceable tips of different sizes have been proposed for the teeth on the breaker roll, to provide for the production of sinter of a different size, when a change in size is desired, or to compensate for such wear on the breaker bars as may result in too wide a spacing between the breaker bars, to produce the desired sinter size. However, the use of removable tips on the teeth of the breaker wheel, has not proved satisfactory for these purposes. In such cases, the holding mechanism for the tips, are subjected to excessive wear, which shortens the in place life of the tips, and the wear of the hub or collar of the wheel on the shaft which rotates the tips of the teeth relative to the breaker bar deck, is so considerable, that replacement of the wheel or collar becomes a considerable item.

The present invention provides an arrangement for adjusting the breaker openings which eliminates the necessity of replacing the breaker bars or dismantling the breaker roll in order to vary the size or" the openings between the bars through which the sinter passes, when it is desired to change the sinter size, or the sinter size becomes too large, due to wear of the surfaces of the bars in the area of the deck where the teeth sweep through the deck to break the sinter into the desired sinter size.

Accordingly, the present invention makes possible the provision of several sizes of openings in the breaker deck with a fixed spacing of the breaker teeth or wheels on the rotary shaft, by varying the size of the openings in the area of the deck where the rotatable breaker teeth sweep through with easily replaceable wear caps of different widths located on the portions of the bars in that area of the deck. Preferably, two sets of caps suffice for the purpose-one a wide set of caps of great enough width to ensrnall the opening between adjacent bars, and one a narrow set of caps of sufiiciently less width to leave a larger opening between the same bars to produce a significantly larger size sinter. Thus, it is possible to select from two or more different sizes of breaker openings, to produce a different maximum size of the pieces of sinter, with the same breaker bars in the deck, and without altering the wheels or teeth on the breaker roll.

The breaker bar caps, to be easily replaceably mounted on the bars, are preferably keyed in place, and for longer =3 in place life of the caps, they are mounted in a special manner on the bars to avoid cracking of the caps under the crushing forces of teeth on the sinter against the caps when on the bars.

Accordingly, the tops of the bars are formed with a medial ridge along the same in at least the area of the deck where the teeth sweep through the spaces between the bars, and the caps are constituted of inverted U-shaped channel form to seat over the ridge, with a slight clearance between the top and sides of the channel and the ribs, so that the base of the sides of the channels seat directly on the lower bearing surfaces of the bars along the opposite sides of the ridge. In this manner, all crushing forces are transmitted by the caps around the rib and directly to the lower bearing surfaces of the bars, so that the cracking of the caps does not occur in use in breaking the sinter.

The sinter breaker apparatus of the present invention is primarily designed and particularly adapted for use in continuous in-line sintering systems, wherein the material is sintered in pallets on the upper strand of an endless conveyor and the hot cakes of sinter broken, as they fall by gravity at the discharge end of the sintering machine, into smaller pieces of the desired size and then delivered for cooling of the sinter into pallets on the upper strand of an endless conveyor sinter cooler in line with the sintering machine for cooling of the broken sinter with air before delivery to its point of storage or use, whereby to attain more rapid and efiicient cooling of the hot sinter with less degradation of the same into smaller sizes requiring recycling of the same into the sinter mix for reprocessing into the larger sizes desired for delivery for the intended use of the sinter.

For convenience, the present invention will be confined to this use of the invention; it will be understood, however, that the invention is capable of other applications, for example, it may be applied to sinter systems with other types of coolers for the sinter, and even with sinter systems in which the sinter is cooled in the later stages of the upper strand of the sintering machine before the cakes are discharged for breaking and crushing by the breaker apparatus of the invention.

Hence, it will be manifest that the invention is not limited in all its aspects to the specific application herein described.

In the accompanying drawings:

FIGURE 1 is a conventional diagrammatic side elevational view illustrating the best mode of practicing the invention in an in-line system for sintering and cooling;

FIGURE 2 is an enlarged vertical cross-sectional view of the crash deck, breaker deck, and breaker roll, as shown in FIGURE 1;

FIGURE 3 is an end elevational view taken on the line III-III of FIGURE 2;

FIGURE 4 is a top plan view taken on the line IV-IV of FIGURE 2;

FIGURE 5 is a vertical cross-section taken on the line V-V of FIGURE 4, showing the openings between the breaker bars using narrow wearing caps;

FIGURE 6 is a vertical cross-section taken on the same line V--V of FIGURE 4, showing the openings between the breaker bars using wide wearing caps;

FIGURE 7 is a side elevational view of one of the breaker bars Without the cap thereon;

FIGURE 8 is an enlarged vertical cross-sectional view of the same taken on the line VIIIVIII of FIGURE 7;

FIGURE 9 is an end elevational view of the bar of FIGURE 7 taken on the line IXIX of FIGURE 7;

FIGURE 10 is a side elevational view of one of the wearing caps;

FIGURE 11 is a vertical cross-sectional view taken on the line XI-XI of FIGURE 10, to shoW the relative dimensions of the narrow wearing caps in relation to the wide caps shown in FIGURE 12;

FIGURE 12 is a vertical cross-sectional view taken on i the same line XIXI of FIGURE 10, to show the relative dimensions of the wide caps in relation to the narrow caps, as shown in FIGURE 11.

Referring to the drawings: the invention can be embodied in any one of a number of types of endless pallet sintering machines and, by way of example, is disclosed as embodied in a continuous in-line sintering machine, such as one composed of the sinter machine as disclosed in R. A. Powell, Patent No. 2,890,038, dated June 9, 1959, and of the sinter cooler of R. A. Powell, Patent No. 2,823,913, dated February 18, 1958. The construction and operation of this type of sintering machine and cooler are Well known in the art, and a brief description thereof will suflice. The sintering machine, as shown in FIG- URE 1, comprises a suitable frame carrying an endless track having an upper run 2 and a lower horizontal run 3 upon which travel the upper run and lower run of a train of pallets 4. At the feed end 7 of the machine, the pallets are raised by known sprocket means from the lower run 3 to the upper run 2 position of the track about a return bend. Each pallet 4 comprises a frame which carries a suitable grate, and the pallets on the upper run of the track are in front and rear endwise abutting con-' tact providing a continuous traveling grate structure, the pallets being mounted with wheels for travel on the tracks,

I as is known. A charging chute 8 is positioned at the feed end 7 of the machine to provide the pallets with a bed of material to be sintered, the bed being supported by the pallet grate structure and traveling therewith. The pallets pass along the upper run 2 from the charging chute 8 to an igniter 1 where the top of the bed of material is ignited. During the remainder of the travel of the pallets along the upper run, they pass over wind boxes 10. These boxes are connected by conduits to a manifold, which in turn is connected to the intake of a suction fan, as shown, the outlet of the fan being connected to a conduit which goes to a stack for discharge of the gases into the atmosphere.

During the upper run travel of the pallets over Wind boxes 10, air in large volume is drawn downward through the bed of material on the grates, causing downdraft cornbustion therein from the top to the bottom of the bed so that the bed of material becomes completely sintered by the time it reaches the discharge end 11 of the machine, as is known in the art. As the pallets pass from wind boxes 10 around the bend at the discharge end 11 to the lower run, the sinter on these pallets is discharged onto an inclined crash deck 13 which directs the broken sinter cake to a breaker deck 14 formed of parallel bars 15. The broken cake is broken further to a predetermined size by a breaker roll 16. The fines and smaller pieces of sinter pass through a screen 17 into a hopper 18 positioned below the breaker deck 14, said hopper also being provided with a screen and discharge spouts, for conveyance of fines and intermediate sizes of sinter back as a hearth layer and as sinter mix. A hood is usually positioned above the screen 17 and breaker deck 14 to extend over a portion of the upper run of pallets at the discharge end 11 of the sinter machine, to convey air carrying dust given off from the sinter at the discharge end 11 of the machine, back into the process. The air for sintering passes through the portions of the sinter bed as it moves toward the discharge end 11, and thence, through the grate in the pallet frame, into the tops of the wind boxes 10, whence the combustion air is withdrawn by the suction fan to the stack.

From the screen 17, the sinter size desired to be delivered from the system as the final product of the process for use in metallurgical furnaces, is delivered over an inclined distributing plate 19 onto the upper strand of a sinter cooler, preferably of the aforesaid Powell aircooled type, as illustrated in FIGURE 1. Said cooler also comprises, FIGURE 1, and endless track supporting structure, having an endless track, including upper and lower horizontally disposed flights 21, 22. Pallets 23 having the front and rear wheel pairs are adapted tov ride on the endless track and positioned beneath the pallets and opening thereto are a succession of wind boxes 24, the wind boxes being adapted to push cooling air upwardly through the sintered material supported on louvers as the grate of the pallets 23. This cooling arrangement is accomplished through a fan assembly which, for example, can be a 120,000 cubic feet per minute fan operating at inches of water. The fan assembly is connected to an air main, which in turn is connected through wind box inlets and ultimately to the wind boxes 24.

A hood is usually superposed above the cooling structure, which hood can extend the entire length of the structure, however, in some instances, it would only be necessary to have this hood extend a partial length of the strand 21, the hood being only necessary in the early stages of the cooling. The hood is usually connected to an exhaust main through hood offtakes, the exhaust main in turn leading to an exhaust stack, as disclosed in FIGURES 1 and 2 of the drawing of said Powell Patent No. 2,823,913. The pallets 23 are driven along the endless tracks 21, 22 by a sprocket driving arrangement as is known in the sintering art.

As the pallets reach the discharge position of conveyor 25, the last louver of one pallet changes position with respect to the first louver of the next following pallet. This action is helpful in freeing the cooled sinter material for the discharge of said material from the sinter cooler.

In the cooling operation, the sinter to be cooled is fed onto the pallets 23 at the right-hand portion of the sinter cooler of FIGURE 1. The pallets 23 then pass from the right to left under the hood. The sides of the pallets 23 engage with hood in known manner to minimize escape of air therefrom. Motors power the fan assembly and provide air through a main, to inlets of the wind boxes 24. The air then passes upwardly through the louvers of the grates of the pallets 23, through the sinter bed and is exhausted through the hood, the hood offtakes, the exhaust main, and the stacks.

The apparatus so far described, is conventional in the sintering art and it is to be understood that the inventive structure described hereinafter, is not limited in its application to specific endless track sintering machine embodiments disclosed, but can be readily incorporated in any one of a number of other well-known types of endless track sintering machines.

According to the invention, the breaker deck is provided, as shown in FIGURES 2 to 6, with a plurality of sets of replaceable Wear caps 26 for at least the area of the deck 14 where the teeth of the breaker roll 16 sweep through the spaces 27 between the bars 15. As shown, preferably two sets-one a narrow set, as shown in FIGURE 5, and the other a wide set, as shown in FIGURE 6of wear caps designed for altering the width of the spaces 27 between the bars 15, in the event it is found necessary to change the maximum size of the sinter delivered as a final product from the cooler to the conveyor 25.

The breaker roll 16 is provided with wheels 28 in fixed relation thereon relative to the centerline of the spaces between the bars 15, and are each provided with a plurality of teeth or blades 29. The blades or teeth 29 on adjacent Wheels 28 are staggered relative to each other in a row crosswise of the line of flow of sinter down the crash deck 13 and over the breaker deck 14. The teeth 29 on each wheel are centered relative to the longitudinal center of the spaces 27, and the bars are evenly spaced from each other across the deck 14 to provide a constant space between each two adjacent bars 15. For this, the front 30 and rear 31 frame members of the breaker deck 14 are partitioned by plates 32 to provide evenly spaced seats 36 for the ends 33 of the bars. As is seen in FIGURES 2 and 3, the front frame member 31 is readily accessible for easy removal of the bars 15 by inserting them through front spaces 6 34 therein, and the front ends of the bars are fastened there by means of detachable fasteners 35. At their rear ends, the bars are loosely seated on the evenly spaced seats 36 and supported against tilting by the spacer elements 32, as will be seen from FIGURE 2.

Thus, the bars 15 may be readily detached and Withdrawn through the front spaces 34, after detaching the securing means 35, and then the caps 26 detached and replaced by other Wear caps 26, and the bars 15 reinserted again through the front spaces 34 for reseating on their seats 32, and the fasteners 35 afiixed.

As common with breaker bars 15 in this sinter art, the surfaces of the wear caps 26 for the bars are coated with a more resistance material than the material of the bars, to withstand the breaking and crushing forces imposed on the caps 26 by the sinter when broken thereon by the teeth 29 of the roll 16.

The caps 26 may extend throughout the entire length of the bars 15, but preferably, extend along only the area of the deck 14 in which the breaking forces are exerted on the sinter by the rotary action of the teeth 29 that are fixed to the breaker roll for rotation thereby, as shown in FIGURES 2 and 4. The bars, however, are made, as shown in FIGURE 7, so as to be reversible. That is, both ends 33 are made alike so either end may be inserted first through the front spaces 34 for seating the ends 33 of the bar-s 15 on their seats 36.

In carrying out the invention, it has been found that the striking forces of the teeth 29 against the sinter on the wear bar caps 26, when they are fitted thereto so that all surfaces bear on the breaker bars 15, results in cracking of the caps 26. Accordingly, in accordance with a further feature of the invention, the bars 15 and caps 26 are so constituted as to eliminate this. To this end, as shown in FIGURES 7 to 12, the top of each bar 15 is constituted of a medial ridge 37 throughout the greater part of the length of the bar 15 with a crowned top 38 and vertical sides 39 and the portions 41) of the top of the bar 15 along the two opposite sides of the ridge 37, at the base of the sides 39 of the ridge 37, are formed flat and horizontal throughout to constitute the bearing seat for the caps 26. The caps are of inverted channel shape with vertical outer sides 42 and a crowned outer top 43. The inner side walls 44 of the channel are likewise vertical, and the inner top 45 of the channel area 46, is likewise crowned. The distance between the inner side walls 44 is slightly greater than the width of the ridge 37, and the inner top 45 of the channel is at a distance from the base of the inner side walls 44 slightly greater GA") than the height of the 1idge37 so that when the caps 26 are secured in place on the ridge 37, there is a clearance between the ridge top 38 and sides 39 and the inner top 45 and inner sides 44- of the channel 46 in the cap, whereby the cap 26 seats only at the base 47 of the sides 42 thereof on the lower horizontal top portion 40 of the bars 15 along the opposite sides 39 of their ridges 37. In this manner, all forces exerted on the caps 26 by the breaker teeth 29, bypass the ridge 37 and are transmitted directly through the sides 42 to the base 47 of the cap 26 to the lower horizontal portion 40 of the bars 15. The caps 26 are detachably secured to the ridges by bolts inserted through countersunk portions 48, and aligned passages 49 and 50 in the cap sides 42 and the ridges 37.

The operation of the sinter machine and cooler with the novel wear caps for the breaker bars in the breaker deck, will be readily apparent from the foregoing description. Hence, it suflfices to point out that when it becomes necessary to change the size of the final product delivered at the conveyor 25, the bars 15 need be merely unfastened at their outer ends in the frame 30, and withdrawn, the bolts removed through the countersunk passages 48, and the caps lifted off and caps of another set Wider or narrower ones, as seen in FIGURES l1 and 12 replaced on the bars, and the bars reinserted in the deck 14 and fastened.

The invention as hereinabove set forth is embodied in a particular form of construction, but may be variously embodied within the scope of the fOlIOWing claim.

What is claimed is:

Sinter breaker apparatus for producing variable sizes of sinter comprising a sinter breaker deck with a rotatable sinter breaker wheel having sinter breaker teeth for breaking chunks of sinter into smaller pieces, said sinter breaker deck comprising spaced stationary parallel sinter breaker bars in position relative to said breaker wheels for the teeth thereon to sweep through said spaces between said stationary parallel sinter breaker bars during rotation of the sinter breaker wheel for breaking the chunks of sinter into small pieces of a size which can pass through said spaces of the deck, said stationary parallel sinter breaker bars being provided with means for varying the distance between said stationary parallel sinter breaker bars, said means for varying the distance comprising sinter breaker caps of varying widths detachably mounted on said stationary parallel sinter breaker bars, the sinter breaker caps which are provided on said sinter breaker bars being selectively mounted on said sinter breaker bars to produce sinter sizing spaces of predetermined size whereby different sizes of sinter may be obtained.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 12,597 Kirk et a1 Mar. 27, 1855 24,316 Low June 7, 1859 1,476,337 Holt Dec. 4. 192: 2,278,316 Hulson Mar. 31, 1942 2,278,317 Hulson Mar. 31, 1942 2,283,053 Gohre May 12, 1942 2,558,107 Smith June 26, 1951 2,578,426 Holrnberg Dec. 11, 1951 2,763,479 Huisken et al Sept. 18, 1956 2,965,321 Koontz Dec. 20, 1960 FOREIGN PATENTS 22,836 Germany Nov. 10, 1955 

